June 29, 2014 AT 12:00 am

FDA Approves Marketing of Robotic Exoskeleton Legs for Paraplegics

ReWalk, a wearable electronic exoskeleton that allows paralysis victims to walk again, received the green light from the U.S. FDA this past Thursday and will soon become available to thousands of paraplegics. From Tech Times:

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of the first motorized device intended to act as an exoskeleton for people with lower body paralysis (paraplegia) due to a spinal cord injury,” the FDA said in a statement.

ReWalk has motion sensors, a computer-based control system that is carried in a backpack and a wearable brace support. The motorized device allows paraplegics to sit, stand and walk accommodated by a trained caregiver.

“The person walks the system, the system does not walk them,” Goffer described the system. “The users are in control – when they want to sit, they sit, when then want to stand and walk, they do so.”

Clinical studies show that besides allowing paraplegics to walk, ReWalk, which was launched in 2012 and manufactured by Argo Medical Technologies Inc., the company founded by Goffer in 2011, also has a positive impact on health with users experiencing improvements in their cardiovascular health and bowel function as well as loss of fat tissue.